For as long as anyone can remember, humans and animals and also plants have been plagued or harmed by a variety of pathogenic small creatures from the groups of insects and worms. Mosquitoes, such as malaria-carrying anopheles mosquitoes, and the larvae of schistosoma (trematodes) which cause bilharziasis may be mentioned by way of example.
There has been no lack of effort to eradicate malaria. Thus, the insecticide DDT was previously sprayed in large amounts in order to control the mosquitoes. However, the good effects had to be balanced against damage to the ecological equilibrium and the use of DDT has now been banned.
The use of chlorine-releasing agents, such as sodium hypochlorite, has also been tried. Again, this agent did not gain general acceptance because it is difficult to handle and, when used in inland waters, it inevitably leads to undesirable salt production and the formation of undesirable chlorinated organic compounds. In tropical and sub-tropical countries, attempts have also been made to lower the surface tension of waters by using surfactants in order to prevent the larvae remaining below the surface of the water. The disadvantages of this technique, these being responsible for the limited use of this method, are that some of the mosquitoes can escape from the range of spread of the surfactants and/or too large an amount of surfactant is required.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,393,781 discloses controlling zebra mussels in cooling circuits by using a peracetic acid solution. This document does not mention any other classes of animals which could be controlled using peracetic acid. The use of peracetic acid as a microbicide for controlling bacteria, viruses, yeasts, algae and moulds has been known for a long time.